Before the thread get derailed into more misunderstanding, I will make some assumption and interpretation of the OP.
I assume the message is about the feeling of progression after a certain point.
After each milestone completed, players will find lesser and lesser milestones available for completion. Such milestones breaks the monotone of the ‘grind’. As such, the reason why some players needs a distraction(rewards) to continue the grind.
However, players that values gameplay will not feel the effect of the ‘grind’ as the nature of their game is built on "having a good game’. This player group seldom put priority on the in-game achievements 1st, rather gaining them through the course of playing.
Thus a simplified outlook at 2 different group of players with different objectives.
Likewise, in an earlier example of the Arena player, they also look for an alternative feel from the game. With the recent change of awarding arena player’s win counting toward the gold portrait reflects that the Dev are coming to recognize the logic of progression.
There is alot of factors/depth that can be brought into this discussion. (hopefully I am on track)
The issue with HS is that the game is lagging to the expectation of it’s customers, and in a time where a product is consumed at a much faster rate than before.
This is a IRL issue where Dev will struggle with technical system, market competition, source of investment, talent pool, etc, etc.
There are many things they can add to the game in each category of - Free/Rewarding/Progression.
These are examples that I put minimal effort into thinking through
Free - They can add a daily log in bonus. This can be a random common card for X amount of days. On the X consecutive day you get a random rare. After X more consecutive days you get a random epic.
Rewards - Add in some sort of challenge like quests but much more and more varied. This could be a weekly quest type thing that will take more than 20 minutes to complete. Rewards could be as simple as a card or gold, but having more than 1 a day to do will keep players engaged.
Progress - Add in a season pass. Almost every game out there is doing it because it is engaging and works. There could be free tier and premium tier that players have to actually play more games in any mode to level up their pass. The pass doesn’t have to reward an entire meta deck. A card here, some gold there, maybe a legendary or a monthly hero at the end of the pass for incentive to grind it all out. Bonus for the company - they introduce another form of revenue to the game.
As far as cosmetics, yeah its a card game but that doesn’t mean they can’t add cosmetic effects to the game. This could be as simple as a particle effect when you play a legendary card or use your hero power. It could be different skins of the heroes already in the game. Death effects could be a thing too. Mecha c’thun probably has one of the best KO effects.
Oh, heavens to Murgatroid NO. Season passes are a cancerous polyp on the colon of gaming. I never want to see the blight of season passes coming to Hearthstone or any other CCG. The game already has a monetization model. Adding ANOTHER one on top of that would be idiotic in the extreme.
Well if it were to be implemented the good thing would be you don’t have to buy it and you’d be getting progress towards the free tier. That’s the beauty of optional content.
Just depends how it is done imho. For instance now that MTG:A changed there reward structure back to weekly and away from daily their pass system is fine imho:
Free Mastery Progress: =36 cards
$20 Mastery Progress nets you:
~$10 back in gems and gold
~$10 back in additional packs
~ A lot of cosmetics
~ An element on the game board
~ Some Individual Card Rewards
~ Exclusive card sleeve
It doesn’t feel needed or pushed. In addition you can wait until the last day if you want and purchase it based on what you earned. Everything is retroactively applied.
Achievements!!! Or more of them is the answer, some super easy, some insanely hard/time consuming. Look at the game that spawned Hearthstone, WOW, it has over 3000 and each has a point value for a total score some where above 20,000! The harder an achievement the more points, there’s even one for collecting points. What are the points for? Absolutely nothing but bragging rights but it keeps people grinding and collecting (in Hearthstones case , buying packs) Simple things like partaking in the fire festival could earn you a fire festival 2019 achievement and a few points. Before I quit WOW a while back one of my most prized was “Hero of Shattrath” which was just hundreds of hours of grinding out eyeballs to hand in to get Rep with an opposing faction. Why? Because it was mind numbing to the point where most people just gave up on it. https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/character/us/argent-dawn/redserpent/achievements
Yup. I frankly doubt that MtGA will ever be a truly “mobile” game in the sense that it comes out with a phone based version. The increased player decision points just don’t allow for a good mobile experience. They could probably smoosh out a version … but it wouldn’t be a good user experience and I think they know that.
Fully agree. Everything from the amount of interactions to the amount of cards that can be on the field at once all contribute to a poor mobile experience I would imagine.
somehow, someone will still come and say : “but but, they’re different types of games, hearthstone players only play hearthstone, they don’t play other video games, how dare you compare it to other games!”
right now, all the best games have a bpass system so why not on hs too? daily quests would give stars (+you get them from playing) and stars increase your bpass lvl, just like on apex
they could make it so much more fun, 2v2, tournament mode, anything would be cool but 5 years later and there’s still nothing, all they do is print card to sell to get lord bobby a new jet every week
I don’t dislike HS aside from the occasional grumble, but I have no reason to play it seriously. I’m currently digging into MMO’s because I have constant goals, story, content, things to grind and earn and aim for. In HS I have the same old game, which means it only really serves a purpose as 10 minutes entertainment on the bus or waiting for something.
I logged on 3 days ago to play a few games. Queued into a control Warrior. 15 minutes into a game I had zero chance of winning I simply got bored, turned the game off and found something else to do.
HS is a game all my friends used to talk about and now none play. None of the new expansions bring anything fresh. No new modes. Even PvE is the same dungeon run format over and over and over. Not sure what they can do about it really.
At a certain point we kinda have to accept that a CCG (even a digital one) isn’t going to provide the same immersive depth of experience as something like an MMO. Back when I played WoW, HS was definitely my secondary game. When I quit due to some schedule changes within my job and stuff shooting my free gaming time while at home in the foot, Hearthstone became my primary. Should that ever change again, I’ll probably start playing other games as well, and there’s really nothing wrong with that.
I don’t think ANY CCG packs the capacity to fully dominate the game time of someone who’s also interested in MMOs and other such games.
20k? it should be at 30k now, 20k is what i had in mop
gladiator=10points, the explorer=50points
why not? if they added new stuff to keep the game fresh but there isn’t, just look at fortnite: map changes every week+new items added/vaulted, new skins every 2-3 days etc…on hs, all we have are “new” cards every 4 months and the same pve thing (only dr7’s puzzle lab was original)
Well written post well done. I have the same problem i have been playing since beta and im still hooked to this game… But sad part is i cant play it for so long there is nothing to do! I complete a quest and im done for that day. In some rare cases i play more then 5-6 games per day and thats it.In my free time my laptop is always on twitch tv hearthstone every day atleast 5-6 hours whatever i do (and thats not playing hearthstone cos i dont have anything to do in it ). I really want to play this game as i watch streams but i cant bcs there is no some achievement system or bigger lvls to reach or some fun and interactive content in it. Its sad that in 5 years there was nothing added in core of the game . As always im in waiting room for expansion to come out and enjoy 10 days of hearthstone and blackout again until next expansion
I agree with you but something like alternative golden animations for cards could be a fun addition, something like a ticket that would be granted to you every 1000 wins with a class, and you would be able to upgrade to an alternate golden art animation for the class card of your choice, whatever rarity of a card youd chose, and then make that card non-dustable. That way you can show off your collection in a different fashion to everyone else. Achievements and cosmetics are definitely something Id like to be added to this game. So many players dont use dust to craft golden cards and they all look so gorgeous.
![:ok_hand:](https://dacy5cilkxabf.cloudfront.net/en/hearthstone/images/emoji/twitter/ok_hand.png?v=6" ":ok_hand:")
![:frowning:](https://dacy5cilkxabf.cloudfront.net/en/hearthstone/images/emoji/twitter/frowning.png?v=6" ":frowning:")
. As always im in waiting room for expansion to come out and enjoy 10 days of hearthstone and blackout again until next expansion